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Is there any source material for the firing of Uriah Smith? For some Adventists the claim seems unbelievable. Here is a quote from EGW that seems to challenge the idea that she had something to do with Smith being fired or that he ever was fired.

"I feel a strong sympathy for Elder Smith, and I believe that his name should always appear in the Review as the name of the leading editor. Thus God would have it. When, some years ago, his name was placed second, I felt hurt. When it was again placed first, I wept, and said, "Thank God." May it always be there, as God designs it shall be, while Elder Smith's right hand can hold a pen. And when the power of his hand fails, let his sons write at his dictation." {2SM 225.3}

What evidence is there to support a claim that Uriah Smith was fired and that Ellen White had something to do with it?

The Denomination has created and preserved a large database of records from the Battle Creek era. This vast collection contains written eyewitness accounts from Uriah Smith, President’s Butler and Daniels, as well as from Ellen White and her manager son WC White, and many more. It’s as if we have their recordings and can listen as they speak to one another through their letters. As a result, there is more than enough detailed information to understand exactly what the 1888 issues were about and what they were not.

Unfortunately, when the time came for the 1888 story to be made public in Takoma Park, a fabrication was substituted, which has profoundly misdirected the Advent Movement to this very day. In fact, it was Froom’s official work on 1888 that set the stage for the misguided Righteousness by Faith debates of the 1970’s that resulted in the catastrophe of Glacier View in 1980. Adventism has been in free fall ever since.

Froom loudly refuted the critics that claimed the church rejected the 1888 message. He bent over backwards to show that Uriah Smith and Butler and most everyone else eventually embraced the new light that came to the church through Waggoner and Jones. Consequently, the Denomination has no reason to repent about 1888. Case closed.

Listen to Froom’s “Unjustifiable Charge of Leadership Unfaithfulness” 1. CONTENTION OF LEADERSHIP BETRAYAL.—There is one contention that, regrettably, has periodically been brought forward that needs to be considered frankly in our quest for historic truth. Ever since the 1888 tensions there have been recurrent harpers on the note that the Church, and primarily its leaders, actually rejected the Message of 1888—at and following that fateful hour of trial.

This is perhaps as suitable a place as any to examine its validity—for echoers still persist, maintaining that the leadership of the Movement, at that time, "rejected" the message of Righteousness by Faith, and thereby incurred the continuing disfavor of God. MOD p 357.

It is well to note that after the '88 Session adjourned, men had time to reflect more calmly than was possible during those tense weeks; concerning the issues and principles involved at Minneapolis. There was a gradual turning to the right, though with some continuing division, but with increasing acceptance of Righteousness by Faith. G. I. Butler, J. H. Morrison, I. D. Van Horn, W. H. Littlejohn, R. A. Underwood, and others, had rallied around Uriah Smith at the Conference. On the other side, along with Waggoner and Jones had stood Ellen White, S. N. Haskell, W. C. White, R. M. Kilgore(though not at first), W. W. Prescott, A. 0. Tait, J. 0. Corliss, and various others—and 0. A. Olsen, when he arrived in the States. These were of the "some" who clearly accepted and championed the message of Righteousness by Faith. There was still that other "some," who first vacillated in uncertainty. But the proportions changed with time—more and more accepting the Minneapolis Message and rejoicing in it. That should never be forgotten, but often is. P362

Although the highest church leaders endorsed Froom’s official 1888 account, it has turned out to be a travesty and fraud. Froom not only covered up the real issues, he also hid the fact that both Uriah Smith and Butler never accepted the 1888 message, even though he had the primary sources(letters) from Smith, Butler, WC White, and AG Daniels, etc that showed otherwise. Not only did the Takoma Park apologists hide the facts, Froom also invented and promoted myths, further misdirecting the Adventist Community.

However, this massive fraud would only work so long as the White Estate suppressed and hid documents. Which is what they did with gusto for generations. This is why the White Estate was operated like a fortress protecting State secrets. They were hiding the real story of 1888. I have been in the White Estate; there I found a large collection of hidden documents, including letters and dairies that tell the real story of 1888. Arthur White, Olsen, Froom, and many others, including Bill Johnsson, have been very dishonest. These incompetent leaders have been deceiving the church for generations about both church history and doctrine.

This explains why we are all shocked today to hear the true story about Uriah Smith and 1888. It is so very different, even the opposite, from what the church teaches.

While the White Estate has released much of this material today, they have done so in a manner that makes it difficult to understand. In fact, some of these letters about Uriah Smith being removed from the Review were published by Pacific Press as part of the large 1888 dump from the White Estate in 1987.

However, few had any idea what they said, much less what they meant. This was by design because the church does not want to face up to their massive 1888 fraud, much less to the explosive issues that this conflict will still ignite. So they refuse to this day to admit guilt and correct the record.

Regardless how long it has taken to understand the facts about 1888, the evidence today is clear; the Denomination has been covering up the 1888 conflict with one fabrication and fraud after another. The White Estate is a crime scene, not an honest reflection of Ellen White’s views. It is time for such corruption to stop and for the facts to replace myths - so the record can be corrected.

So the real question is not whether Uriah Smith, at the end of his life, was removed as Review Editor,(he was), but why? The answer uncovers the explosive doctrinal issues about 1888 that the Denomination has been suppressing for generations, even as it disproves the claim that the church accepted the 1888 message.

While the 1888 conflict is complex, it can be simply reduced to a battle between the powerful theologian Uriah Smith versus Ellen White, a popular founder with spiritual gifts. This battle is still ongoing today because the White Estate has long ago taken the side of Smith, all the while suppressing Ellen White’s true views. The results speak for themselves; the Advent movement is once again self-destructing.

It is time for Ellen White’s side of the 1888 story to be honestly told. Although the Takoma Park apologists correctly portrayed Uriah Smith as the greatest of all Adventist theologians, fully supported by Ellen White, this is not true. After 1888, Ellen White and Uriah Smith disagreed on fundamental points of theology. So much so, that he was demoted in 1897 to associate Editor, and finally lost his editorial position in 1902 due to a doctrinal scandal. To understand why Uriah Smith was removed as Review Editor, is to understand the heart of 1888 conflict.

Uriah Smith’s “Open and Vicious Attack” Against 1888

Review Editor Smith had been demoted in 1897, replaced by AT Jones, a Gospel reformer. However, Jones left the Review in 1901 and Smith once again became Editor. However, within a short time, President Daniels and the Board removed him because he published a series of anti 1888 articles. Ellen White agreed with the action, but not some others.

Few have heard this account, which shows the traditional church narrative to be fiction.

Today, most everything that Adventists or their critics think they know about church history, including and especially 1888, is twisted and wrong. So while it may be true that Uriah Smith was walking to the Review in 1903 when he died; he had already been removed as Editor,(with pay), replaced by Prescott for attacking the 1888 message.

To be fair, there were some other issues involved, such as Smith’s old age and poor health, as well Smith’s racism, but the real problem was his public attack in the Review against the 1888 theology. Here is a quick look at the real story, which comes directly from eyewitness sources such as Uriah Smith, WC White, and President Daniells.

Uriah Smith Attacked RBF- 1902

Crisis to Victory, now renamed to 13 Crisis Years,(published by the White Estate in 1966), contains a reference to this incident. However, beware; this dishonest work mischaracterizes what took place and purposefully suppresses the facts in order to make Uriah Smith look good. Here is the reason why Smith was removed as Editor:

“In January and February of the year 1902 three articles dealing with the book of Galatians, written by William Brickley, a layman of Kimball, Minnesota, appeared in the Review and created some agitation. A. G. Daniells wrote of this in a letter to George I. Butler, dated April 11, 1902: "Just before the Week of Prayer a series of articles appeared from one Brother Brickley, on Galatians. They were openly and squarely against the message that came to this people at Minneapolis and that has been embraced by thousands of our people and openly and repeatedly endorsed by the Spirit of prophecy. These articles have caused a great deal of trouble and dissatisfaction among our brethren in different States… Many of our ministers were perfectly astonished that the Review would publish them. They could not believe that they had been read by the editor, and so wrote him.”

In a clear attempt to excuse what Smith had done, Olsen claims that we should not bee too hard on the aging Smith, as he was not in the Review office very much. Listen to this dishonest spin:

“If the reader is tempted to pass judgment upon Elder Smith for having permitted the publication of these articles, he would do well to remember that he was nearing the end of his life(he died March 6, 1903) and that because of his rapidly failing health he was unable to spend much time in the office to oversee his work.” CTV, 1966, p 231http://documents.adventistarchives.org/Books/TCV1966.pdf

The Review articles created a storm of controversy, both for and against the 1888 theology. At first, many assumed the anti 1888 articles were an oversight. But after interviewing Uriah Smith, it was discovered there was no mistake. This was intentional. It is what Smith had always believed. Waggoner and Jones were not only incorrect about the law in Galatians, but Smith went on to say that the Sabbath could not be defended with their view:

Listen to Smith defend his 1902 public attacks in the Review against the new 1888 theology: “It seems to me that one thing is true and sure: if the added law and the schoolmaster referred to in the third of Galatians apply to the moral law, then, when the seed came, that is, when Christ came, there was a change in relation to the law, and we are no longer held by it as a rule of duty.”

Smith the careful theologian, correctly realized that if Waggoner’s view of the law in Galatians was correct, then the 4th Commandment could NOT be binding on anyone. Thus the primary SDA doctrine of the Sabbath would fall, and so too their eschatology.

Smith was clear: “We cannot maintain the perpetuity of the moral law with the view that has been lately introduced; and it seems to me to like making a move backward(underlined by Smith) to give ourselves away to the claims of our opponants.”

“I do not know, and never have known, of a position that fully meets the no law position, except the position that Paul in Galatians refers largely to the ceremonial law; and this does not interfere at all with the question of justification by faith.”

U Smith to LF Trubey, Battle Creek Michigan, Feb 11. 1902, p 312

President AG Daniels, who had previously been in Australia for some time, did not realize how much opposition there was in the US against the 1888 reforms. He was also shocked to discover that Smith and Butler were still opposed to the new 1888 theology. And new ministers were following their views.

In a 1902 letter to WC White, Daniells explains that “brother Smith” is playing a role to “revive the old Minneapolis controversy.” He goes on to speak about how Smith placed a series of anti-1888 articles about the Galatian law in the Review, causing a firestorm.

“These articles were an open and vicious attack on the message of righteousness by faith presented at Minneapolis, and repeated over and over again by brethren Jones and Waggoner and others since that time.”

WC White goes on to say that he assumed it was a “careless editing” and not a “designed controversy,”(which is the position published in CTV.) But WC White goes on to write that he was “surprised” to find out otherwise.

“Finally, I spoke to Elder Smith about them, and suggested that I presumed the articles were put in by a subordinate without examination. But he informed me that this was not the case. He said that he read them himself, and published them because he believed they set forth the truth.” Smith went on to admit that these anti-1888 articles “taught what this people first taught on the question. And what he still believed.”

In other words, this episode was no accident as the White Estate pretended. Smith knew what he was doing and so too does the dishonest White Estate in covering up the facts.

Butler Supports Smith

Smith’s removal as Editor made the Old Covenant crowd angry. Butler sided with Smith and was furious. He told Daniells “how he felt about the message Jones and Waggoner brought to this Denomination in 1888.” Butler “spoke especially of their position on the law and the covenants” and said “with considerable emphasis, that he never could see light in their special messages, and that he had never taken his position.” Daniels to WC White, June 21, 1910, page 3. As rumors were swirling about Smith’s removal as Editor, Daniels pushed back. George Butler “seems to have been informed by some brother minister in Battle Creek. I am sure from what he writes that someone has written him a false account of our dealing with brother Smith. We could not have treated anybody more considerably than we did brother Smith. Our action was taken with the deepest convictions that something must be done in order to place the Review on the highest plane…We are called and pledged to a great reform…”

In a reference to 1888, Daniells said: I am sorry to say that Brother Smith does not stand with us in all this work of reform. There is much about it that he does not understand…” Daniells also regretted that so many were “still under the Old Covenant of works,” and that “the younger fellows who are coming on have imbibed these old heresies from the men in the field, who are still unconverted to this new light.”(p4)

Daniels had no regrets about removing Smith as Editor. After he “learned that Brother Smith is utterly at variance with the teaching, and that he is free to see it opposed in public and private, I feel clearer still that we have done right in placing Brother Prescott on the Editorial staff… God has put his seal of approval on the message that came at Minneapolis, and I can not understand how a man can proclaim his unbounded confidence in the Spirit of Prophecy, and reject the Minneapolis message.” (p5)(A.G. Daniells to W.C. White, April 14, 1902, in Manuscripts and Memories of Minneapolis, p. 321).http://www.lightbearers.org/the-old-covenant-brood/

Smith correctly understood that Waggoner’s new view of the Two Covenants would force a change in the doctrine of the Sabbath. As the gatekeeper for SDA doctrine, Smith viewed it his duty to protect the 4th commandment at all costs, even if it meant he had to stand up to Ellen White, which he did.

Smith pushed back hard in defense of the traditional SDA view that the law in Galatians was ceremonial, refusing to concede any doctrinal ground to Waggoner, who claimed it was also the Moral law. By 1891, in spite of Ellen White’s efforts to promote New Covenant Adventism, Uriah Smith had not changed his mind about the Law in Galatians or the Two Covenants.

However, both Waggoner and Ellen White were exiled from Battle Creek in an obvious political move. But it was too late. Many had already heard this new light about the New Covenant. Such views were a breath of fresh air for the Adventist community, which was also confused and divided by this debate. While many SDA’s embraced the new theology, most of the leaders, especially Uriah Smith, rejected Waggoner’s correct views on the Two Covenants.

From his powerful position as Editor of the Review, Smith led the charge against the 1888 theology. He championed his Old Covenant views on the Two Covenants that he published in the 1860’s and became the ringleader against what Ellen White called “new light.” By 1892 Ellen White, now in Australia, wrote to Uriah Smith, blaming him for confusing the Denomination about the Gospel and for fighting against Waggoner’s New Covenant theology:

“The many and confused ideas in regard to Christ’s righteousness and justification by faith are the result of the position you have taken toward the man and the message sent of God. But oh, Jesus longs to bestow upon you the richest blessings . . . Justification by faith and the righteousness of Christ are the themes to be presented to a perishing world. Oh, that you may open the door of your heart to Jesus!” 1888 Materials, pp. 1053–1054

12 years after 1888, the Battle Creek Denomination collapsed. Legalism was no longer fashionable in Battle Creek, except with the older crowd. By the turn of the century, the unresolved debate about the Two Covenants resulted not only in great doctrinal confusion, but also a backlash against SDA eschatology, including the Sabbath, as Smith predicted. The vast majorly of SDA’s left at this time as the Battle Creek Empire self-destructed, forcing the leaders to retreat to Takoma Park.

Over time, with the 1888 history securely hidden within the White Estate, Smith’s theology, not Waggoner’s became established truth in Takoma Park. Smith was never convinced he was wrong, even as the White Estate also embraced his Old Covenant view, suppressing Ellen White’s opposing position. Conclusion

The real history of Battle Creek, including and especially the 1888 conflict, is very different from what all SDA’s have been taught. The White Estate is a criminal enterprise; guilty of promoting a massive publishing fraud, which is ongoing to this very day.

Although the White Estate has been successful in hiding the 1888 history from generations of trusting SDA’s, they have been caught. Now, in the information age, this massive publishing fraud will become exposed for all to see. It may take a class action lawsuit will help everyone understand the scope and depth of this arrogant and massive fraud.

The 1888 debate over the Old and New Covenants destroyed the 19th century SDA Empire. Uriah Smith refused to embrace the Gospel reforms promoted by Waggoner, Jones and Ellen White. Once in Takoma Park, the Old Covenant men eventually took control of the relocated Denomination and hid the 1888 record so that Smith’s views would prevail, and so they have, with the same sad outcome of schism.

As New Covenant proponents came forward in the 20th century, like Dr. Ford, they were attacked by the White Estate and the Review Editors, slandered and exiled from the church; all in an effort to defend Uriah Smith’s Old Covenant views. Enough is enough. It is time for the Review and the White Estate to confess what they have done and correct the record so that the Advent Movement can go forward. It is time for the Adventist Community to demand that their leaders repent for this massive fraud, finally telling the truth about church history and doctrine.